Puglia Pools Blog

The last thing any home owner wants to hear is that part of their property has not got the proper planning authorisation in place but unfortunately this happens a lot more frequently than it should and results in a multitude of problems. We generally find out there are issues with a property when the owners contact us to carry out some work for them and we need to check the property details out with the commune or apply for planning permission. It is at this point that anything irregular must be sorted out before any further work can be applied for or started and obviously causes long delays and can even affect the new work application.​Our latest experience of this was when a client decided to sell their property and during the process it was found that among other things, two rooms were illegal and the sale has fallen through and there could be a claim for compensation by the buyers.If you don't have all the documentation to your property and would like to have it checked out then let us know and Giuseppe will be more than happy to check through everything for you free of charge.

Many of our clients like to manage their own advertising either through there own websites or through the various advertising sites available such as Owners Direct or Airbnb. However, after the initial booking has been made there is still quite a lot that needs to be done before the guests actually arrive at the property to start their holiday. Organising final payments, arrival times, guests names and passport details are just a few of the things that need to be done and even though your guests are looking forward to their holiday it is not always top of their priorities to provide all the information required before they arrive.One of the services we provide is to manage the booking process for you. Once you have secured the booking we then ensure that all the relevant information is received, all their flight information and arrival details are logged so that everything is ready for your guests when they arrive. We are also able to ensure that they have all our details, contact numbers etc before they leave home so that they know that they can contact us if things do not go according to plan.

One way of making your property stand out from the others is by the services you can offer your guests during their stay. All the properties we manage have access to our range of guest services some of which are listed below. Ensuring that your guests have the best possible holiday experience is essential to try and gather as many positive reviews for your property in order to help with increasing future enquiries. Word of mouth is a good source of future bookings so giving your guests a great holiday experience will hopefully mean they will tell their friends and colleagues about your property.

Our geometra will be available at our offices on Friday afternoons to provide free advice on guidance on any planning queries you may have. If you have any questions regarding your existing property or future property purchases then please do not hesitate to call in and speak to Giuseppe or email us and we can arrange a meeting.

Through the year our work schedules and priorities change. Once all the pools are closed and the rental season is over we immediately start to concentrate on getting the properties prepared for the following season. Many owners want their properties refurbished or have larger projects completing that we can't do through the rental months so winter is just as busy as the summer. This winters popular projects seem to be air conditioning and pool heating both of which help to make properties stand out from the ever increasing crowd of holiday properties in the area. As the rental market becomes more and more congested it is not enough to simply advertise "Trullo with pool" and expect the bookings to come rolling in as there are so many properties to choose from. We are continually trying to help our clients optimise their properties potential and ensure they have as many bookings as possible and receive the best reviews possible to help drive future enquiries.

After recruiting two new members to the team we now have capacity to take on more pool maintenance and property management contracts. If you are looking for either of these services then do not hesitate to contact us.

For many years Chlorine has been the standard type of of sanitisation used for swimming pools across the world. While chlorine is safe when used correctly there has been a drive to find a way of keeping pools clean and safe without having to use it simply because when dosed incorrectly it can be hazardous and there are links to chlorine and asthma and skin irritation. Salt water pools are a favourite way of reducing chlorine usage but the pool still has chlorine in the water which has come from the salt molecule when it broken into Sodium and chlorine as part of the sanitisation process.However, there are other forms of sanitisation such as Ultraviolet light, Ozone, Hydrogen peroxide and copper amongst others that can be used to eliminate the use of chlorine completely.If you are interested in removing chlorine from your pool and would like more information then please feel free to contact us.

One of the problems of having air conditioning in your property is that your guests very often leave the running when they are not in the room or worse still leave the windows and doors open while the the system is on thereby substantially increasing your electricity bills.We are now installing systems that automatically turn off when no movement is detected in the room within a predetermined amount of time and will stop the unit functioning if any of the doors or windows are left open. The manufacturers of the system claim that these features reduce the cost of running the air conditioning by up to 80%.We can also retrofit a unit to pre installed systems so there is no problem if you already have air conditioning and would to benefit from these cost savings.Another advantage of these systems is that the temperature can be programmed and PIN protected to further reduce excessive use of the system.Please contact us for further information.

If you have a house or holiday home here in Italy then you will know that electricity is pretty expensive here. If you have a large property with a swimming pool heated by electrically powered heat pumps, large amounts of outdoor lighting, irrigated gardens with water from a pumped water supply then you can be looking at electricity bills of over €600 a month. One way of reducing the cost is by installing a photovoltaic system to generate electricity for you when you need it and feed it back into the grid when you don't. We now work with a local company who use the latest panel and inverter technology produced in Germany to install photovoltaic systems in our area. If you would like to know more about the process and the costs involved then please email us directly.

Now that we are a few months into the winter closure it is a good time to have your pools checked to make sure they are in good shape. Dogs chewing through water bags, heavy rain or strong winds dragging the cover into the pool, large amounts of detritus rotting on top of the cover are several reasons why it is a good idea to have your pool checked through the closed season. Checking the water parameters at the same time can enable an extra dose of sanitiser to be added or a PH adjustment to be made where required to ensure that the pool is in perfect condition the moment the it is opened in the spring.

Author

Chris at Puglia Pools has been maintaining pools in the region for over 9 years after spending 25 years in Customer Service back in the UK. Both Puglia Pools and Perfect Puglia are family run businesses by Chris and Graham with their respective partners Alison and Hayley.